Going back in Time: Person of the Year winners in tech (images)

Mark Zuckerberg, Time's Person of the Year, is not the first honoree from the world of technology and science. He's in good company, with a list that includes tech titans, a machine, and even a planet.

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Mark Zuckerberg

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Time magazine's 2010 Person of the Year, is not the first honoree from the world of technology and science. He's in good company, with a list that includes tech titans, a machine, and even a planet.

Time cited Zuckerberg "for connecting more than half a billion people and mapping the social relations among them, for creating a new system of exchanging information and for changing how we live our lives."

Since 1927, Time magazine has chosen someone or something that, "for better or worse," made the greatest impact during the year. The story goes that Time editors first came up with the idea during a slow news week. (That sounds familiar.)

CNET has culled from the list to highlight winners in the technology and science fields.

We've also created a poll to discover our readers' pick for tech person of the year.

Apollo 8 astronauts

Time declared the Apollo 8 astronauts--William Anders, Frank Borman, and James Lovell--Men of the Year in 1968.

Time explained its choice this way: "For all its upheavals and frustrations, the year would be remembered to the end of time for the dazzling skills and Promethean daring that sent mortals around the moon."

The computer

In 1982, Time picked not a man, but a machine: the computer.
In its story about the pick, the magazine quoted an ad that attempted to answer the question "Will someone please tell me what a personal computer can do?"

"A personal computer, it says, can send letters at the speed of light, diagnose a sick poodle, custom-tailor an insurance program in minutes, test recipes for beer."

Ted Turner

In 1991, it was media mogul Ted Turner's turn to grace the cover as "Man of the Year."

In the early days of CNN, Turner insisted it was all about timing.

Time used his quote to help explain its choice: "'I am the right man in the right place at the right time,' he said. 'Not me alone, but all the people who think the world can be brought together by telecommunications.' The years since, and most especially the one just past, have demonstrated how emphatically he was right."

Jeff Bezos

What's in the box? It's Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com, amid all that pastel packing foam.

In 1999, Time changed its annual designation to Person of the Year from Man of the Year, though the first female winner--Wallis Simpson--was chosen in 1936. Also in 1999, the magazine named Albert Einstein the Person of the Century.